MusicalWorldHypotheses:

{{Musical}}s as an art form have a unique problem. For musical fans, it merely falls under WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief. For those who dislike musicals, it tends to at least superficially be the reason why.

''What's with all the singing?''

As we all know, music needs to be composed in advance. Rhyming poetry takes time to piece together. People don't just burst into song and dance in the middle of the street to express their feelings. So how do you make sense of a work of fiction where they ''do''?

* '''The AlternateUniverse Hypothesis''': The musical is set in an alternate world, or magic has been worked on the ordinary world, in which [[CrowdSong people]] really do burst into [[SpontaneousChoreography spontaneous song and dance]]. If the world has always been this way, singing is simply a normal and commonplace form of human communication, if one that seems a bit odd to those of us living in a less musical world. If the world is not normally this way, expect it to be some sort of an [[MusicalisInterruptus uncontrollable compulsion to sing]] at emotional moments, sometimes to the extent of [[SummonBackupDancers Summoning Backup Dancers]] from seemingly nowhere. Characters may here comment explicitly on when they or other characters are singing as opposed to talking (though where the verb "sing" is just used instead of something like "say" in a song, it does not necessarily imply this). This tends to be the most common, especially in stage musicals.
* '''The All In Their Heads Hypothesis''': There is no singing; the songs are an artistic rendering of the characters' fantasies, with the format of song in a way serving to distinguish between what really happens and what is only in the characters' heads, much like a [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespearean]] {{Soliloquy}}. Naturally, this means that no characters are aware of what goes on in another character's song: there may be duets, but then they are [[DistantDuet Distant]] {{Counterpoint Duet}}s where the two characters do not know of one another's participation.
* '''The Diegetic Hypothesis''': The characters are performing actual songs for one another as they might in RealLife, the songs having been written and practiced beforehand in a realistic way. It does not count if the song is merely background music for a scene; if the performance is shown in full and given the viewer's full attention, however, it can count as an example even if the work is not what one would traditionally call a musical.
* '''The Adaptation Hypothesis''': Derives from the LiteraryAgentHypothesis: the songs are merely a dramatic reconstruction of what ''really'' happened. For instance, if two characters converse in song and come to some sort of conclusion, it is assumed that the characters ''really'' just had a normal, non-musical conversation that came to the same conclusion, but for the sake of upping the drama (or comedy), it has here been adapted into a song. Technically, all musicals are ''really'' examples of the Adaptation Hypothesis: there is a story and the music is added to dramatize it. However, to truly count as a definite Adaptation Hypothesis example, the others must generally be clearly not applicable: it must be a non-diegetic song during which the singing character clearly communicates with other characters in some form but the universe is still not implied to treat spontaneous singing as normal.

Of course, musicals rarely consistently adopt one musical world hypothesis for their entirety: most of the time individual songs employ different hypotheses, with some songs even split into sections that seem to use different ones. It is especially common for All In Their Heads songs to be scattered among other songs that are clearly heard by other characters. This makes a degree of sense-after all, in an alternate universe hypothesis musical, an all in their heads song would be the equivalent of an internal monologue in a standard play.

One should also remember that most stories in ''any'' genre will contain conceits and set-pieces in order to form a more rewarding narrative. After all, why are there so many snappy one-liners and pratfalls in a comedy? Or why are there so many explosions and car chases in an action movie? Answer: because they just wouldn't be comedy or action movies without them. [[MST3KMantra Musicals have songs in them: just go with it.]]













[[WMG:How did no one notice Scar singing "[[VillainSong Be Prepared]]"?]]
Since the elephant graveyard is established as within visual range of Pride Rock, plus all the noise and lights, shouldn't someone have noticed?
* Musical numbers aren't really happening.
** Um, yeah they are. Remember, Simba attacked Zazu in the middle of his.
** Which, I'm sure, really involved that fifty-foot swaying pyramid of random animals as well.
** That was a wonderful moment because it was so intentionally surreal -- once the musical number "disappears", Zazu is still somehow trapped under a rhino, with no explanation of how the rhino "really" got there, and the story just moves on.
*** Towards the end of Just Can't Wait To Be King, Simba whispers to some animals who then talk to other animals. It's not unreasonable to assume that Simba asked the animals to help them ditch Zazu, and the animals obeyed because he's their prince and potential predator.
* Any songs are actually happening unless the movie says otherwise. Or are you telling me that Simba just magically ditched Zazu in some scene we never see? And that the hyenas just read Scar's mind to mind out about his plan to kill Mufasa? And that Scar's hyena army just appeared out of nowhere?
** I dunno, are you telling me that they were singing "Hakuna Matata" for that entire timeskip? I won't say, as that other one did, that the musical numbers don't happen, but they are an extremely over-the-top dramatization of actual events.
** It could just be we are seeing perfectly synced segments of them singing the song over the years. For it to be the group's motto you wouldn't think it was sung only once.
** Point conceded. The musical numbers are a bit over-dramatized. I don't want this to turn into a FlameWar ThreadMode.
* It's not really the same but in [[Disney/{{Aladdin}} Aladdin 2]], Jafar explicitly captures the Genie during "You're Only Second Rate". So DisneyAnimatedCanon songs being 'real' does have some basis.
** In this case, as with the Genie's songs "Never Had a Friend Like Me" and "Prince Ali", magic is involved, so we can say AWizardDidIt
* Chalk it up to "your basic DisneyAcidSequence" and let it go.
* Are people here not familiar with the unwritten but well-established rules of how a musical works, and the idea of how a musical sequence works? The rule is that a musical sequence by nature is a metaphor for what's really happening, the emotional states of the participants (because, y'know, in real life people don't really spontaneously burst into well-written songs they make up on the spur of the moment to describe how they feel). As a metaphor they represent both what the people are feeling and things that are happening, even if what happens doesn't * actually* happen precisely the way it's portrayed in the song (i.e. in a well-choreographed dance sequence). So in the "rumble" scene in WestSideStory there really is a gang fight going on, yes, the gang fight isn't "imaginary"; but nor are we to understand that the gangs really are actually fighting by dancing around each other in circles singing the name of their gang.
** I'd argue that the canon just doesn't clarify which MusicalWorldHypotheses it falls under.
** "in real life people don't really spontaneously burst into well-written songs they make up on the spur of the moment to describe how they feel" [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnY59mDJ1gg Improv Everywhere disagrees]]
** That was ''awesome''. Pretty sure that song wasn't made up "on the spur of the moment," though; looks rehearsed.
* Actually, they ''could'' really be happening in this case. If the future king wants to have a musical number, you can either show up and do your part in the dance or you can put your species on fast track to extinction. Your choice.
* The elephant graveyard is visible from pride rock, but by far not close enough to tell what is going on within it. The magnitude of distances on the savanna is misleading due to the medium; lions can smell who is about for miles, long before they achieve visual contact, so the pride might have been aware of activity in the graveyard, but not its nature. And activity, in and of itself wasn't particularly unusual. In fact, the geothermal activity within the graveyard, assuming it is anything like yellowstone, would easily mask the smells within.


















* Are the various songs such as "Be Prepared", "Welcome to the Forty Thieves", and "Gaston" actually happening story wise?
** They're an artistic representation of what's going on. So in the "real life" Beauty and the Beast, the villagers were just talking about how great Gaston is and he got his great plan and everything. But it's much more interesting to see it all as a song with hilarious lyrics.
*** If that's the case then what about that one scene from Lion King where Simba attacked Zazu in the middle of his "Morning Report" song? Also in the Lion King 1/2, we can see "Be Prepared" starting.
**** We assume Zazu was talking, and got attacked
***** And actually, this is how it happened originally. The "Morning Report" song was added to the tenth anniversary edition; it didn't appear in the original movie
** Yes. They are. They are [[TheMusical Musicals]] after all, so a good amount of storytelling is done through song.
*** The nature of Visuals versus Reality in theses songs now has a page at Main/DisneyAcidSequence.
*** Well according Lion King 1/2 "Be Prepared" happened more or less.
** According to ''{{Enchanted}}'', the songs do really happen. Giselle could make a musical number happen in New York and a bewildered Robert was aware that it was happening.
** Read the Lion King IJBM, where this is addressed. Songs in musicals are metaphorical, stylized renditions of what is "actually" happening.
















Musical World Hypotheses
Musicals as an art form have a unique problem. For musical fans, it merely falls under Willing Suspension of Disbelief. For those who dislike musicals, it tends to at least superficially be the reason why.
What's with all the singing?
As we all know, music needs to be composed in advance. Rhyming poetry takes time to piece together. People don't just burst into song and dance in the middle of the street to express their feelings. So how do you make sense of a work of fiction where they do?
The Alternate Universe Hypothesis: The musical is set in an alternate world, or magic has been worked on the ordinary world, in which people really do burst into spontaneous song and dance. If the world has always been this way, singing is simply a normal and commonplace form of human communication, if one that seems a bit odd to those of us living in a less musical world. If the world is not normally this way, expect it to be some sort of an uncontrollable compulsion to sing at emotional moments, sometimes to the extent of Summoning Backup Dancers from seemingly nowhere. Characters may here comment explicitly on when they or other characters are singing as opposed to talking (though where the verb "sing" is just used instead of something like "say" in a song, it does not necessarily imply this). This tends to be the most common, especially in stage musicals.
The All In Their Heads Hypothesis: There is no singing; the songs are an artistic rendering of the characters' fantasies, with the format of song in a way serving to distinguish between what really happens and what is only in the characters' heads, much like a Shakespearean Soliloquy. Naturally, this means that no characters are aware of what goes on in another character's song: there may be duets, but then they are Distant Counterpoint Duets where the two characters do not know of one another's participation.
The Diegetic Hypothesis: The characters are performing actual songs for one another as they might in Real Life, the songs having been written and practiced beforehand in a realistic way. It does not count if the song is merely background music for a scene; if the performance is shown in full and given the viewer's full attention, however, it can count as an example even if the work is not what one would traditionally call a musical.
The Adaptation Hypothesis: Derives from the Literary Agent Hypothesis: the songs are merely a dramatic reconstruction of what really happened. For instance, if two characters converse in song and come to some sort of conclusion, it is assumed that the characters really just had a normal, non-musical conversation that came to the same conclusion, but for the sake of upping the drama (or comedy), it has here been adapted into a song. Technically, all musicals are really examples of the Adaptation Hypothesis: there is a story and the music is added to dramatize it. However, to truly count as a definite Adaptation Hypothesis example, the others must generally be clearly not applicable: it must be a non-diegetic song during which the singing character clearly communicates with other characters in some form but the universe is still not implied to treat spontaneous singing as normal.
Of course, musicals rarely consistently adopt one musical world hypothesis for their entirety: most of the time individual songs employ different hypotheses, with some songs even split into sections that seem to use different ones. It is especially common for All In Their Heads songs to be scattered among other songs that are clearly heard by other characters. This makes a degree of sense-after all, in an alternate universe hypothesis musical, an all in their heads song would be the equivalent of an internal monologue in a standard play.
One should also remember that most stories in any genre will contain conceits and set-pieces in order to form a more rewarding narrative. After all, why are there so many snappy one-liners and pratfalls in a comedy? Or why are there so many explosions and car chases in an action movie? Answer: because they just wouldn't be comedy or action movies without them. Musicals have songs in them: just go with it.
All musicals are technically examples; when adding one, it is therefore necessary to detail which musical world hypothesis applies to which songs.












How did no one notice Scar singing "Be Prepared"?
Since the elephant graveyard is established as within visual range of Pride Rock, plus all the noise and lights, shouldn't someone have noticed?
Musical numbers aren't really happening.
Um, yeah they are. Remember, Simba attacked Zazu in the middle of his.
Which, I'm sure, really involved that fifty-foot swaying pyramid of random animals as well.
That was a wonderful moment because it was so intentionally surreal — once the musical number "disappears", Zazu is still somehow trapped under a rhino, with no explanation of how the rhino "really" got there, and the story just moves on.
Towards the end of Just Can't Wait To Be King, Simba whispers to some animals who then talk to other animals. It's not unreasonable to assume that Simba asked the animals to help them ditch Zazu, and the animals obeyed because he's their prince and potential predator.
Any songs are actually happening unless the movie says otherwise. Or are you telling me that Simba just magically ditched Zazu in some scene we never see? And that the hyenas just read Scar's mind to mind out about his plan to kill Mufasa? And that Scar's hyena army just appeared out of nowhere?
I dunno, are you telling me that they were singing "Hakuna Matata" for that entire timeskip? I won't say, as that other one did, that the musical numbers don't happen, but they are an extremely over-the-top dramatization of actual events.
It could just be we are seeing perfectly synced segments of them singing the song over the years. For it to be the group's motto you wouldn't think it was sung only once.
Point conceded. The musical numbers are a bit over-dramatized. I don't want this to turn into a Flame War Thread Mode.
It's not really the same but in Aladdin 2, Jafar explicitly captures the Genie during "You're Only Second Rate". So Disney Animated Canon songs being 'real' does have some basis.
In this case, as with the Genie's songs "Never Had a Friend Like Me" and "Prince Ali", magic is involved, so we can say A Wizard Did It
Chalk it up to "your basic Disney Acid Sequence" and let it go.
Are people here not familiar with the unwritten but well-established rules of how a musical works, and the idea of how a musical sequence works? The rule is that a musical sequence by nature is a metaphor for what's really happening, the emotional states of the participants (because, y'know, in real life people don't really spontaneously burst into well-written songs they make up on the spur of the moment to describe how they feel). As a metaphor they represent both what the people are feeling and things that are happening, even if what happens doesn't * actually* happen precisely the way it's portrayed in the song (i.e. in a well-choreographed dance sequence). So in the "rumble" scene in West Side Story there really is a gang fight going on, yes, the gang fight isn't "imaginary"; but nor are we to understand that the gangs really are actually fighting by dancing around each other in circles singing the name of their gang.
I'd argue that the canon just doesn't clarify which Musical World Hypotheses it falls under.
"in real life people don't really spontaneously burst into well-written songs they make up on the spur of the moment to describe how they feel" Improv Everywhere disagrees
That was awesome. Pretty sure that song wasn't made up "on the spur of the moment," though; looks rehearsed.
Actually, they could really be happening in this case. If the future king wants to have a musical number, you can either show up and do your part in the dance or you can put your species on fast track to extinction. Your choice.
The elephant graveyard is visible from pride rock, but by far not close enough to tell what is going on within it. The magnitude of distances on the savanna is misleading due to the medium; lions can smell who is about for miles, long before they achieve visual contact, so the pride might have been aware of activity in the graveyard, but not its nature. And activity, in and of itself wasn't particularly unusual. In fact, the geothermal activity within the graveyard, assuming it is anything like yellowstone, would easily mask the smells within.